Wheelerdealer, judging from your other acomplishments I would say that thats right up your alley! I however have no desire to do it so im going to semi permanently attach it with a screw from the inside to the rest of the hull. However, the Sky part is hollow. So im toying around with the idea of making it free flooding along with the rest of the sub or filling it completely with foam. Any thoughts out there either for or against???

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

A couple of things to note. One is the hull opening. It doesnt come with one, youll have to make one yourself. In this picture of one of Mamas's latest builds you can see it on the flat portion of the deck. I talked to him about how he did it, more to the point, how he did it and made it look so good. Because anytime you cut something with a saw , you lose material. So when you go to put it back in place youll have a space. The method he described made me decide to change it a little bit to make it more fool proff. After marking it out Im going to use one of Dremels larger dia. diamond impregnated wheels and using the right angle drive carefully cut it out. Taking care to let any errors be held to the inside. Then after everything is cleaned up so that all the cut lines on the hull(not the cutout piece) are arrow straight im going to take some plastic strip and epoxy it under the deck, letting enough stick out to form a shelf. Then the cutout piece will also have plastic strip epoxied on the bottom of it, except that the strip will be carefully placed in place so that it sticks out past the existing cut line so that it takes up all the space of the removed material(kerf). That will then form a ledge that can be easily filled with auto body filler. Youll have to put it in place and take it out several times to mark it and get it right. Also since the plastic strip under the cutout piece takes up space youll have to put that same plastic strip between the shelf and the hull that was epoxied first otherwise the hull and the cutout wont be flush.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

Youll also notice that in the forground of the picture is a radiused corner piece that has horizontal lines or grooves cut into it. The ones that come with it dont have those lines. Youll have to cut in your own, a difficult task since youll want them with perfectly straight lines with square corners down even into the bottom of the groove( a tall order to say the least).

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

Also to be considered is that some of the openings in the hull will need to be cut out and various types of grill work placed on the inside of the hull to make it look like that there is more here than meets the eye. There are no openings cut in the hull so to get this thing to sink im going to have to design my own openings in the bottom so that it will take on water. There are some openings pictured in the technical manual for " Sea Skim Mode" thrusters that I will make sure are included. HEY! I want " Sea Skim Capability" too!

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

A little more progress. The sail/bridge section as it came out of the mold had a few items to be addressed. One was that the bottom of it where it attaches to the hull was not flat and there were no lines to trim to, so: I took a 2x4 that was flat lengthwise to a straight edge and nailed it down to my work bench so that it would not move around. Using the straight edge the 2x4 had a crown acrossways so using a belt sander I addressed this until it was flat.

Then I cut 60 grit sandpaper into two pieces and glued them on top of the 2x4.

Then with a back and forth sanding motion I sanded the bottom edge down until it looked acceptable.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

Call me OCD(obssesive cumpulsive disorder) but I kept staring at this thing and it was driving me crazy and the time to act was now! The open bridge was so shallow that a midget would trip over its edges and fall into the mid Atlantic and be lost forever. I determined that a deeper bridge would be constructed and installed at some point. In the meen time it would make me feel better if I cut out the bottom of the bridge,,,,,,, thus.

Viewed from the inside.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

The technical manual showed a Chevrolet bowtie shaped area on the bottom for TV cameras and other secret stuff so I marked it in with pencil and a ruler. While I was at it I cut out the sonar radar dome and test fit it.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

I believe that I got these drawings from "Collins Class"(Byron) who by the way is also getting one of these Skydivers. I hope that he puts it on here or starts his own thread. At any rate in the top drawing you can see the scale depth of the open bridge which I will use to construct mine.

In this drawing you can see the torpedo tubes and their rough location.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG

The new Dremel diamond blade. It cut through the GRP like butter with no tendancy to bite or kickback.

You can see a space between the bottom edge of the sail and the deck.

This is caused by the blocked out recess area on top of the deck being too wide at the middle.

Ill just have to fill it in a little with epoxy and sand it down.

If you look close enough you can see my pencil marks where I carefully marked the hatch opening. Accurate solid lines are a must for a good cutting job.

As you can see I used heavy weights in order to hold down the hull so that it wouldnt move during the cutting operation.

And finally yours truly showing a replay of the successful cutting operation. As you can see I use a pair of magnifiers to bring the work up close for a better, straighter result. Also a firm stance is needed with good positioning of the hands so that you can steady yourself during the cut. Dont let the lack of hair and youthful apearance fool you. My vision is perfect and I am 22 years old.

There are OLD pilots and there are BOLD pilots but there are very few OLD BOLD pilots. MAG